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Asian Equities Fall on Trump Concerns, Terror Attack in Spain

(Bloomberg) -- Asian equities fell, paring the week’s gain, after a terror attack in Barcelona added to concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy plans may be stymied by discord within his administration.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 0.5 percent to 159.04 as of 4:36 p.m. in Hong Kong, set to decline for the first day this week. About three shares retreated for each one that gained, with financial and technology sub-gauges leading the drop. Indexes slid across the region, with Japan’s Topix Index marking its worst weekly performance since June as the yen strengthened, while Singapore’s benchmark was poised for its longest stretch of weekly losses in more than a year.

Action planned to improve trade, tax, infrastructure and jobs, which was at top of Trump’s campaign agenda, has started sounding like "empty promises," said Margaret Yang a strategist at CMC.

India’s Infosys Ltd. was the top contributor to the decline in MSCI’s broadest gauge of stocks in Asia Pacific after Vishal Sikka resigned as chief executive officer of Asia’s second-largest software services provider.